Anastasia Kouvaras Ostrowski

Anastasia Kouvaras Ostrowski

Design Researcher + ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

(how to pronounce my name)

I am an assistant professor of UX Design in the School of Applied and Creative Computing at Purdue University.

I was previously a postdoctoral associate at the MIT Media Lab in the Personal Robots Group and at the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing’s Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC). I completed a PhD in Media Arts & Sciences from the MIT Media Lab. I received my master's (2017) and bachelor (2016) degrees in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan with a focus on engineering design processes and idea generation.

My work explores how to support equitable design and implementation of robots and AI through design approaches, such as co-design and participatory design, in the human-computer interaction and human-robot interaction fields, working with roboticists, co-designers, and policy-makers.

I am hiring graduate students for Fall 2026 interested in equitable design and implementation of technologies. Please reach out if you have any questions!